Polaris
by circxe
Summary: "She was his north star, the fixed point which his world turned. For as long as his heart beats, or hers, he believed that they would always share a destiny." Ellie is special, she managed to live through a bite from a walker and now she's trying to look for a scientist to cure this bullshit virus. Loosely based off The Last Of Us. [Glenn/OC, Maggie/OC]
1. survive

**SHE WAS UNDENIABLY, UNDOUBTEDLY, SCREWED** as she continued to run through the ruined cityscape she had found herself in. Despite the fact that she had left Marlene for dead behind her, or that she was bleeding profusely from a bite wound on her arm. Even though her body screamed with protest, limbs heavy like lead and weighed with fatigue, she pushed herself forwards. If she had to crawl her way to safety, she damn well will.

Five weeks, four days and eleven hours; that was how long she had managed to stay alive since the outbreak. Everything had deteriorated so quickly in front of her eyes and now it seemed like her luck was running out. She had been an ordinary citizen, almost at the end of her engineering degree, with a stable social life. At the time, she thought that she had it all but none of that mattered anymore- the entire world had gone to shit.

Ellie dodged a drifter with outstretched hands on her left, veering towards the alleyway on the opposite end. Panting heavily and with a stitch in her side, she dragged herself towards the open basement window she had been looking for. "One more push," she started to chant to herself as another oncoming horde started down the pavement towards her. "Shit. Come on."

She threw her bag of supplies through the window first. Clutching the metal baseball bat tightly in her hand, she dropped herself to the ground with a forceful grunt. The build up of lactic acid in her calves burned as much as the fire in her lungs. She was painfully aware of the groans and snarls that were quickly approaching her. Crawling on the back of her elbows, she squeezed herself thorough the dark opening with her legs first.

Her feet dangled from the window, trying to find some kind of surface to support herself with but it didn't seem likely that she would find anything. As she was about to drop herself down, she felt a sharp tug on her scalp. A drifter had caught up to her and was now attempting to take a bite out of her neck. She screamed and thrashed around with her arms, trying to hold the creature away from her. It snapped its teeth wildly by her ear, then a loud bang caused her to wince painfully. She felt the pressure drop from her head and she promptly fell down in a crumpled heap on the cement ground.

Gasping for breath and groaning from her jarred senses induced by the fall, she managed to look up. A burly man had rushed over to her side and shut the window above her. Numerous heavy thumps resounded as the drifters banged their bloodied hands against the glass. He then bent down to pick up her bag before turning to her.

"Let's go," he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

"Joel," she breathed out in relief. "You made it. Thank God."

He gave her a small smile in greeting before dragging her out of the basement room and through the door. They climbed a set of wooden stairs on the side into a boarded up apartment. Ellie looked around, the only source of light coming from several candles placed around the living room. Joel walked around her towards a table and threw his gun on top of a pile of some heavy artillery.

"How did you get all these?" she asked.

"The first thing I did was to go back and raid the gun store," he told her. She nodded; thinking that Joel having worked part time there before must have helped in the matter. "My car's parked in the garage but we'll probably have to clear the way outside. They're swarming the entire area."

"Hey," she started slowly. "Do _you_ know how all this started?"

Joel shook his head. "No... the last thing I heard before broadcasting went down was that there was some kind of outbreak, they suspected it was some kind of viral disease."

She sighed and raised a hand to rub her face tiredly. "A disease..."

He looked up at her before starting violently and stumbling away. Ellie looked up at him in surprise and confusion before furrowing her eyebrows at the look of terror on the young man's face.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" she questioned.

"You've been bit," he pointed at her arm before reaching forwards to grab a gun from the table.

"Shit," she took a step away instinctively and raised her arms in the air. She had almost forgotten about that fact while trying to get away from the horde. "Joel."

"I saw others got turned from being bit," he told her and his throat bobbed up and down as he gulped. "You can't stay here, Ellie, I'm sorry."

"No, wait, I'm okay," she tried to reason with him. "Look at me, god damn it. I was bit more than a day ago."

He frowned dubiously and lowered his gun a fraction. "That's impossible. Are you telling me the truth?"

"You're a med student, you should be able to tell," she held her arm out in front of him. "Look, it's not that fresh. And I'm completely okay, I swear."

Hesitantly, Joel lowered his gun all the way down. His eyes kept flickering between her face and the bite wound before he slowly pushed himself away from the wall. He took careful steps towards her before grasping her arm and examining the wound curiously. Then he pressed a hand against her forehead to feel for her temperature.

"How is this possible?" he murmured, eyebrows pinched. "You're... you're immune?"

Ellie shook her head. "I have no idea. All I know is that I feel fine."

"This is..." he gestured, a look of awe now making its way onto his face. "Nothing short of a miracle, Ellie. We need to get you to the CDC."

"CDC?" she frowned as he let go of her arm and went back to the table.

"Center for Disease Control and Prevention," he replied, picking up a map and tracing a route with his finger. "If there's any hope for a cure, it's with them."

"I know what it is, numbskull," she hit him lightly on the arm. "But the entire block is crawling with those things, how are we even gonna get out of here?"

He shifted the things around on his table and pulled a jukebox towards them. Ellie looked at it with a raised eyebrow before turning to look at his smug face.

"You're kidding me..." she started.

"We just gotta plant this baby on the other side of the building, wait for those suckers to go and get the hell outta here," he told her.

She shook her head. "Okay, we'll do it tonight."

* * *

 **CAST LIST**

Glenn Rhee : Steven Yeun _  
_Ellie Luciole : Emilia Clarke  
Joel Hale : Tyler Hoechlin  
Riley Abel : Emeraude Tobia  
Hunter McCall : Rami Malek

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE**

 _omg i've been wanting to write a glenn rhee fanfiction for ages now! so i got this chapter written up and thought why the heck not post it?_ _PLEASE leave a review if you like this story! i also have a negan fanfiction if anyone is interested lol._


	2. fight

**WEEK ONE**

 **ELLIE SAT ON HER OWN** at the end of an empty row in the frigidly large lecture theatre. The drone on zeroth law became static noise as her mind wandered over more irrelevant subjects. She burrowed into her jacket, crossing her arms across her chest while her fingers twirled her pen in impatient circles. Twenty more minutes of this snore fest and she could finally grab a burger from the student cafe next door. Her phone lit up in front of her and she leaned forwards to pick it up from the table.

 **RILEY: lol people are going psycho in keynes**

 _ELLIE: ha take a video and put it on youtube_

She let out another small sigh and stared down the several empty rows of benches to the front of the theatre. Thermonuclear dynamics had never been more boring, especially when it was taught by Mr Griffin. This was the only lecture she had that particular day, so she'd have some free time later. She pondered on dropping by town to do some shopping and whether Joel was free to tag along. Her phone started to vibrate spastically in her right hand.

 **RILEY: holy shit something's wrong**

 **RILEY: WTF PEOPLE ARE EATING EACH OTHER**

 **RILEY: DEAD PEOPLE COMING BACK TO LIFE**

 **RILEY: HOLY FUCK**

 _ELLIE: ha ha very funny riley_

 **RILEY: I'M NOT JOKING ASSFACE GO OUTSIDE**

Ellie shook her head in disbelief and started to type out a reply when the fire alarm started ringing all around them. Mr Griffin stopped speaking mid sentence and everyone looked around in either exasperation or utter relief. Ellie started to shove her stationary into her bag when the doors to the lecture theatre slammed open. One of the science faculty administrators stumbled into the room, his hair mussed and streaks of blood staining his white shirt. Someone screamed from the front bench and a few people jumped back in surprise at his appearance.

"Get out of here!" he shouted. "Everyone leave and go back home right now! Barricade yourselves, wait for help!"

"What's happening?" Griffin asked.

"There's some kind of outbreak, people are dying and coming back to life, they-"

The doors burst open behind him for a second time and a woman with tattered clothes lunged at him. He fell to the floor screaming as the woman bit into his neck with a squirt of blood. Chaos ensued as several students screamed and fled. One of the boys she knew as Adam tried to pull the woman off the man but she bit into his arm instead. She seemed manic, grotesque and inhuman. The back door of the theatre opened nearby and Ellie turned around in fear of more attackers. Instead, she saw Hunter looking around the room. He stopped when he finally caught sight of her and started waving frantically in her direction.

"Hey, come on! Let's get out of here!" he yelled over the cacophony from the front of the room. Griffin had started hitting the murderous woman on the head with a brass figurine.

Ellie didn't waste time to witness the outcome as she darted towards Hunter and fled from the scene. They ran down the halls of the college towards the main entrance, and she skidded to a stop when she saw a boy getting hit by a car. His body flew ten feet into the glass wall that surrounded the reception area, shattering it on impact. She let out a short scream as the boy landed at her feet, bleeding profusely all over the floor.

"Oh, my God!" she gasped. "What the hell just happened?!"

"There's no time," Hunter grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the exit. "We need to get Riley and Joel, then get the hell out of here!"

"Wait, what's happening?!" she yelled as they went out of the building. People were screaming nearby, and she swore she could hear snarls from some kind of rabid animal.

"There's no time," the older man repeated as he led her towards Keynes College.

She tried to find an opportunity to survey their surroundings, but it felt like she had just stepped into a warzone. All she was acutely aware of was the panic on people's faces as they ran aimlessly away from who even knew what. Cars were honking loudly, more shouts and screams, then the crazy people. She saw one of them attack another student, all but throttling the poor kid to the ground and clawing maniacally at his face. Why weren't people helping him?

"Hey!"

Ellie slammed into the hard tone chest of her childhood friend as he grabbed hold of her shoulder to stop her. Riley was standing beside him with a look of terror in her dark eyes, and droplets of blood clearly decorated her face. Joel exchanged a glance with Hunter and they started walking quickly down a dirt path that led to the back of Emory University where the old church stood.

"Can somebody tell me what the hell is happening?" she demanded angrily as Joel pushed her along.

"Didn't you read my texts?" Riley responded. "I'm being completely serious when I say that the dead are coming back to life and attacking people."

"That's crazy," Ellie frowned in consternation. "That's not possible."

"I saw it myself, Ells," Joel told her quietly. "One of the cadavers that was just brought in... it jumped up and killed a student. Tore his throat out and started eating his face. We tried to kill it but nothing worked. Then the kid with the chewed off face woke up too, attacked more people."

"But he was really dead? Like gone?" she blinked several times in confusion, trying to come to terms with their new situation. It was hard to swallow a truth like that, but everyone was definitely scared of _something_ right then.

"His throat was torn out," he stated plainly.

"It has to be some kind of disease, I guess," Hunter said as he grabbed a wooden board lying on the side of a building. "Some form of rabies?"

"Whatever it is, it's dangerous," Riley said with a hard edge in her voice. "I heard gunshots earlier."

Ellie turned the corner of the church first with the others on her heel. Somebody grabbed hold of her again, pulling her roughly to the side and through the wooden door. She felt clawed hands dig deep into her skin with sharp nails and she let out a cry of fear. A feral snarl tore through the air, wet and gurgled with blood. She looked up into the mangled face of the bishop, the soft tissue in his cheek dangling through a wide gaping hole. He was missing an ear, his eyes a milky white, teeth snapping to sink themselves into her flesh.

Hunter pulled her away quickly as Joel stepped up to shove hard at the bishop. He fell backwards, impaling himself through the chest on the broken side of a pew. Instead of stopping, the bishop started to flail his limbs around despite the jagged piece of wood sticking out of his torso. They stopped to stare in gross curiosity until they heard more deranged groans drawing closer.

"We need to go now," Riley said before they hurried away.

That had been her first encounter with the walking dead.

* * *

 **PRESENT**

Ellie crouched down low as she exited the door to the back of the building, creeping her way towards an abandoned blue car. She hid behind it quickly, shuffling towards the front end to peer over the side of its headlights. There were only three drifters in the alleyway ahead of them. The opposite end of the alley led out to the main street where the horde was wandering about, and it was also blocked off by a fenced gate. It might not hold if too many of those dead things kept pushing against it, but it would give them ample time to get away.

Joel joined her a moment later behind the car, a bag holding the radio slung over his shoulder. He looked over the top of the car hood and glanced back at her with a quick nod. They both held SKS rifles in their hands with the bayonets extended. Ellie nodded back and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She still hated looking at those things, especially when they had been mutilated or decayed beyond all hope. It still boggled her mind how they were able to move, let alone attack living humans.

She rushed out from behind the car, holding her rifle up in the air to stab the first drifter in front of her. It had already turned around when it heard her footsteps approaching and the blade sunk into its eye. Joel was right behind her, slamming the butt of his own rifle into the side of the second drifter's head. It fell heavily to the ground and he struck it down into the cement with a loud crack. Ellie turned to find the third one shambling towards her, and she had to step aside to avoid its outstretched arms. She quickly smacked it with her gun and stabbed it through the eye again with a disgusting squelch of soft tissue.

Joel darted forwards when they were done, stopping right in front of the metal gate. A few drifters on the other side caught his scent and started to make their way towards him. Their snarls sounded harsh and revolting to her ears, rotten teeth snapping as they drew closer. Joel took out the radio and placed it on the ground in front of them as they rattled against the fence. He switched it on and trashy pop music started to play loudly from its speakers. Grinning in amusement as more drifters started to head their way, he turned around and cocked his head back to the building.

They quickly ran inside and shut the door, hurrying to grab their things from the hallway and racing to the other end of the apartment block where the car was. The shiny black Impala greeted them after Joel rolled the garage door open. Its engine purred to life under his touch as Ellie manually rolled up the garage door. A couple of drifters were still in the area and they turned towards her. She ignored them and jumped into the car, then Joel stepped on the gas pedal. They drove out into the now empty street, racing towards the CDC on the other side of town.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE**

 _hi guys! thank you so much for reading this story. i really hope you like and enjoy it. if you do, please leave a review to support my writing and tell me what you think! i love hearing from you and it totally makes my day! the next few chapters will go through the first five weeks of ellie with her friends, but we'll also meet glenn soon yay!_


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